AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER

SYNOPSIS:
A sequel to The Inconvenient Truth (2006), this film addresses the progress made to tackle the perceived problem of man's contribution to climate change and tracks Al Gore's efforts to persuade government leaders to invest in renewable energy, culminating in the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:Truth to Power? Lies to people, would be a more accurate title for this blurt of propaganda which ends with calls for us in the audience to be #beinconvenient and to help push Al Gore's agenda for renewable energy and wipe coal off the face of the earth. It's All Gore, really, a self congratulatory portrait of the 'lapsed politician' as he calls himself, who single handedly made a deal that ensured India would join the 149 other nations in Paris to sign the 2015 climate accord - meaningless as it was and is.

We might have hoped that a film with 'Truth' again in the title, a decade after his much acclaimed An Inconvenient Truth, Gore would have been able to tell the truth at least about the difference between CO2 and air pollution. But Gore can't tell even that truth, nor any other about his subject. Grotesque catastrophes are happening right now around the globe as a result of man's carelessness with fossil fuels; scorching heat starting wild fires, for instance, even though the worst case scenario from the warmist brigade is an increase in average surface temperature of around 2C - in the future.

He travels the world lecturing wannabe Climate Leaders like some shaman, pumping these wide eyed, open mouthed young followers full of the fire and brimstone and drought and flood and melting ice and rising sea levels and sinking islands and failed crops - all caused by 'climate change' which would all go away if only everyone turned to renewables. Snake oil for sale at the end of the lecture?

Gore is a dangerous fool whose age-old campaign to warn the world about global warming has turned into a mission in which rousing emotional propaganda condemns coal just as the Old Testament condemns the devil. He is filmed lecturing, but it looks all too much like proselyting. This might appeal to the converted and the wannabe converted, but as a film for mass audiences, it is unappealing. It's a haphazard film, pulling together various scenes of Gore lecturing either his followers or politicians. There is even time for a personal visit to his birthplace, where we see the photos on the walls, hear his daughter's composition about the pros and cons of daddy running for President ... What there is no time for is a rational argument, nor a glance at the economics of climate change policies, which is the single most pertinent subject in this matter. Nor for even a moment to consider that climate change is an astonishingly complex subject, which requires more than a finger pointing to fossil fuels. There are plenty of genuine scientists working in the field who may have ben asked to contribute sensibly, thus perhaps shifting the film from propaganda to documentary status.

Of course, we are warned from the start, with the film's key art showing an hourglass, the top half of which is the marbled view of earth from space slipping down into the blackened bottom half of a ruined industrial landscape. And the first shot is water dripping off a large piece of glacier ice. Yes, that old chestnut.

For a genuine documentary on the subject, in which each alarmist assertion is tested against the evidence, search online for Mark Moreno's 2017 film, Climate Hustle.

Review by Louise Keller:Al Gore is so convincing, it is hard to separate the man from the film and the film from the subject matter. Gore is intelligent, eloquent, passionate, committed and charismatic. It's a heady mix and in this polished documentary, the former UC Vice President turned eco-evangelist ups the ante by effectively ramping up the controversial issue of climate change and elevating it into a movement.

It's easy to be swept along. If Davis Guggenheim's 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth was a bit like Global Warming for Dummies in which Gore through his slide-show presentation pragmatically presents facts and figures about changing weather patterns, environmental and ecological issues, this sequel is a Call to Action as Gore enthuses his followers to spread the word.

Irrespective of whether or not Gore includes all the facts regarding scientific research and renewables, it is impossible to refute the changing climate -from the melting Greenland glaciers in the opening sequence to the 'rain bombs' in Miami and India.

Much of the film is spent as a lead up to the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris and the fact that President elect Trump has withdrawn US support from the Accord, adds bite - as if more bite were needed in this highly relevant topic.